Monthly Archive for October, 2010

Reserve Your Tickets–Conference Dinner at Musso and Frank Grill

Published on October 30, 2010 in Headline and Newsletter. 1 Comment

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The 2010 Image Conference delegates and plenary speakers will gather together for the conference dinner on Thursday, 2 December at Hollywood’s Musso & Frank’s Grill. The evening will be a chance for delegates to come together over food, wine and conversation.

Since it first opened in 1919, Musso and Frank Grill has been entwined with the history of Hollywood and the film industry. Through the years, Musso’s has always been “the place to be”. From Marilyn Monro and Joe DiMaggio to Charles Bukowski and Janis Joplin, Musso’s has been and still is a gathering spot for artists, innovators, and icons of all trades.

To reserve your place at the dinner, or for more information, please visit the Activities & Extras webpage.

Preview Screening of ‘The Illusionist’–The Image Conference

Published on October 29, 2010 in Headline and Newsletter. 1 Comment

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Join other Image Conference delegates for a Preview Screening of Director Sylvain Chomet’s The Illusionist (L’Illusionniste) at UCLA’s Film and Television Archive.

Sylvain Chomet channels the visual expressiveness and effortless charm of Jacques Tati into this almost wordless paean to a world and an art form long gone by. The Illusionist of the title faces the ragged end of a stage career alone, having been pushed aside by newer attractions, until he meets a young girl, captivated by his magic, who changes his life forever.

Producer: Sally Chomet, Bob Last. Screenplay: Sylvain Chomet, Jacques Tati. Cast: Jean-Claude Donda, Edith Rankin. Presented in French, English, and Gaelic dialogue with English subtitles. 35mm, 90 min.

For more information or to reserve your tickets, please see the conference Activities and Extras.

Q&A with Sean Cubitt

Published on October 27, 2010 in Headline and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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Sean Cubitt will be giving a plenary session, 2 December 2010, at The Image Conference in Los Angeles, USA.

Sean Cubitt is Director of the Program in Media and Communications at the University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor of the University of Dundee. His publications include Timeshift: On Video Culture (Comedia/Routledge, 1991), Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture (Macmillans/St Martins Press, 1993), Digital Aesthetics (Theory, Culture and Society/Sage, 1998), Simulation and Social Theory (Theory, Culture and Society/ Sage, 2001), The Cinema Effect (MIT Press, 2004) and EcoMedia (Rodopi, 2005). (Continued)

What’s the main idea that has motivated your work?

3 of them really: consideration, wonder, and hope

Where or when do you find yourself most productive?

Pretty much anywhere

Who have been your biggest heroes/heroines? And why?

Theodor W Adorno, because he wrestled his demons and never allowed anyone to persuade him that he had beaten them; and Murray Bookchin, for a life lived for the environment that never sacrificed humanity

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Q&A with Becky Smith

Published on October 27, 2010 in Headline. 0 Comments

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Becky Smith will be giving a plenary session, 2 December 2010, at The Image Conference in Los Angeles, USA.

Becky Smith is head of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television First Year MFA directing program as well as an Emmy-nominated film and television director. Smith has directed numerous reality and documentary pilots and series for networks including MTV, MTV2, BRAVO, NBC, Fox, Disney Channel, PBS, Fuse and ABC Family. (Continued)

What’s the main idea that has motivated your work?

I’M AN ACTIVE FILMMAKER AS WELL AS A PROFESSOR OF FILM PRODUCTION. EVERY ASPECT OF FILMMAKING MUST SERVE THE STORY. AS AN EDUCATOR, I AM ALWAYS THINKING ABOUT STORY, WHETHER I’M TEACHING A SCREENWRITING CLASS, A PRODUCTION CLASS, OR AN EDITING CLASS.

Where or when do you find yourself most productive?

I AM MOST PRODUCTIVE WHEN I HAVE A LOT OF THINGS ON MY PLATE – AND LOOMING DEADLINES. BUT I CAN ALSO BE PRODUCTIVE WHEN I KNOW THAT I CAN’T LIVE WITH MYSELF IF I DON’T TRY TO CREATE SOMETHING NOW!

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Urban Typographic Map Posters

Published on October 8, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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From information aesthetics…

The small collection of Typographic Maps show geographical features only by using text as a visual element. These unique maps accurately depict the streets and highways, parks, neighborhoods, coastlines, and physical features of the city using nothing but type. From a distance each poster appears as an accurate reference map, but at closer inspection one can perceive the thousands of words it comprises.

There have been no automated processes used during the making of these maps, unless the many copying and pasting. Instead, everything was laid out manually, from tracing streets over an OpenStreetMap image, to nudging curved water text, to selectively erasing text to create a woven street pattern. More…

Flash!–On looking at those who don’t want to be seen

Published on October 4, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

By James Polchin at The Smart Set…

Recently I’ve been experimenting with my digital camera, performing what I call “street shootings.” I set the autofocus, hold the camera casually at my waist and walk around the streets of Paris shooting away at storefronts and pedestrians. The soft click of the shutter catches some people’s attention, raising their curiosity about what’s going on. Is he taking a photo? Is he taking a photo of me?

The result nets a lot of bad photos: blurry, odd composition, horrible lighting. But once in a while will come a couple of photos that capture a fleeting moment when the perspective and the light and the pedestrians come together in a way that I could never had achieved otherwise. Often the best photos catch a person walking down a street thinking they are in their own private moment and are not the serendipitous subject of my camera. I sometimes feel a bit guilty with these walks, knowing that beneath them is a morbid intrigue about intruding on strangers who never consented to my lens.

I say morbid for from its earliest invention to our digital age there has been an uneasiness with photography and the pleasures and horrors it records. This uneasiness is precisely what confronts you at the Tate Modern’s “Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance & the Camera.” A warning — this large and unwieldy exhibition may unearth unsettling experiences between you and photographs. More…

Caravaggio speaks to our times

Published on October 4, 2010 in News and Newsletter. 0 Comments

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By Jackie Wullschlager at Financial Times…

On July 18 1610, Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, feverish, bedraggled, frightful to behold with knife wounds to his face, died alone in Porto Ercole. He was 38 years old and was buried in an unmarked grave. Wanted for murder, he had been trying to reach Rome from exile in Naples, but was thrown into jail en route and had lost track of the paintings which he hoped might secure a papal pardon. The most notable of these was his gory “David with the Head of Goliath”, full of dread, in which he depicted himself as the decapitated Philistine.

The paintings survived and their intense naturalism and dynamic effects of light and shade influenced generations, but Caravaggio as a personality dropped from historical view. No letter, drawing, or document penned by him remains; the sole records in which he appears are those kept by police, along with scant references by contemporaries confirming him as a brilliant troublemaker. “There is also a Michelangelo da Caravaggio who is doing extraordinary things in Rome,” the Dutch painter-poet Karel van Mander noted in 1603. “He does not devote himself continually to study, but after a fortnight’s work will swagger about a month or two with a sword at his side and a servant following him … ever ready to engage in a fight or an argument, so that it is most awkward to get along with him. Despite this, his painting is beyond dispute.” More…